Maintaining a systemic perspective can be especially challenging for family therapists when trauma is part of the clinical picture. It’s easy to drift into an individual focus, get pulled into lengthy discussions of past injuries, lose sight of relational dynamics, or even begin to feel stuck and pessimistic about change. In this webinar, Jorge Colapinto identifies common clinical missteps—what he calls “rabbit holes”—and offers a practical framework for avoiding them. Drawing on decades of experience in child welfare, structural family therapy, and community-based intervention, he illustrates how therapists can stay grounded in a present-focused, relational approach, yet be respectful of family members’ historical trauma and its impacts.
Presented in a conversational format, Adam Boguski, Associate Director of CFBT, guides the discussion to surface key insights and real-world applications. Together, they demonstrate how clinicians can remain both trauma-informed and systemically oriented, helping families mobilize their own strengths to create meaningful change.
This is an intermediate-level course. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.
Course Objectives
As a result of completing this course, participants will be able to:
1. Describe two features of informed-informed practice.
2. Describe the focus of systemic family therapists when treating families with a history of trauma.
3. Identify four clinical errors or “rabbit holes” for systemic family therapists treating trauma
This course uses an online distance-learning self-paced format. It includes recorded audio, recorded video-based webinars, and selected readings. There are post-tests to ensure comprehension of the material. Participants can communicate with the instructors via the online moodle interface. Real-time communication with the instructor in our online, self-paced distance learning courses is not possible. However, participants can send an email to the instructor via the online moodle interface within the course and expect to receive a response within 48 hours. All course content, including post-tests, should take approximately one hour to complete.
Frequently Asked Questions
Visit our Self-Paced, Online Continuing Education Policies & FAQs for additional information regarding the CFBT online learning center, accommodations for disabilities, reporting problems with the course, instructions for viewing webinars, etc.